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Recently Paradiso Presents when on the road to work with some highly successful insurance agents throughout the Midwest area. While working with the selected agencies, we asked the owners if they prepared a business plan annually. In addition, we also asked them for a breakdown of how much they planned to grow in 2013.
Unfortunately, we find the same answers coming from agency owners no matter the size or location. The answer? “We do not have a business plan and I have not thought about how much we’re going to grow.”
Growth does not come without a proper plan because HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY. Unlike strategy and planning will lead you to success, hope will lead you to failure. As we wind down 2013, consider starting the process of putting together a business plan for 2014. Invest a small amount of money and find out how much money your agency makes per client, per household. It is critical to put together the proper numbers that it’s going to take to understand your TRUE growth for 2014.
For example if you plan for 2014 to grow by 10% there are several key factors we are going to have to understand.
- First is figuring out how much business you lose per year because if you lose 11% of our business, in order to grow by 10% you actually have to grow by 21%.
- Secondly is understanding how much money you make per household because you need to narrow down how many more policies you are going to have to write for the year 2014 in order to get the 11% back that you have lost and also gain the 10% in order to have the 10% growth in return that will equal the 21% that we will need totally in order to reach our 2014 goal.
- The next step is going to put out a plan and how much new business you are going to have to write for the whole year and then break it down for quarter per month, per week and then sharing these goals with your staff.
- In our agency, we have our monthly goals posted on a 10’’ x 12’’ white sheet in everyone’s office. It’s very important to do this in order to help each and every team member within the Paradiso insurance agency. It is also very important to keep your team members up to date to where we stand, so that each and every team name member is informed of what our numbers actually are.
Growth is not easy, growth comes with a strategy. Without a strategy, it’s only hope and with hope you will fail. Failing is not an option.
Help your agency succeed with a simple business plan and a strategy on how to execute that plan. Your agency depends on your strategy and with 2013 quickly coming to an end it is critical to get started on your business plan today.
